Africa Media Watch

In this week's Africa Media Watch, Liberia asks who UN sanctions will hit hardest, President Mugabe of Zimbabwe parties on at 77, Guinea's media campaign against ECOWAS, can Libya's Colonel Gaddafi lead Africa to unity, and saving the Ghanaian economy - all you need is love.

Who benefits from sanctions on Liberia?

In Liberia, the Liberian Connection takes comfort at the UN decision to delay for two months the imposition of sanctions, including a diamond and arms embargo.

The stay of execution is intended to give Monrovia the chance to demonstrate that it no longer supports the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels in Sierra Leone, its northwestern neighbour.

Sanctions translate into greater poverty for the masses

Liberian Connection

But will the sanctions have the desired effect? No, according to the Liberian Connection.

Most law-abiding importers will turn to other source countries, but the price of diamonds sold by Liberian diamond traders will fall, which will attract risk-takers and criminals, who will see the lower prices as an opportunity to buy and smuggle diamonds at lower prices for sale at higher prices abroad, it argues.

Historically, sanctions have created lower economic conditions across the board, it writes. "Lower Gross Domestic Product for Cuba, Libya and Iraq has been reported since sanctions were imposed. Lower GDP translates seamlessly into greater poverty for the masses."

The challenge for the UN, therefore, should be "to find ways to prosecute those benefiting form the diamond trade directly without further enslaving our people to hardship."

Happy Birthday, Mr President

In Zimbabwe, the belated 77th birthday party for Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe this weekend comes at a time when, according to the independent Zimbabwe Standard, Mr Mugabe's spirits need a lift.

Pressure is being exerted on the Harare government from all angles, the paper says. The state coffers are empty, the government has a judicial crisis on its hands, and now there is the threat of an international campaign for economic sanctions.

President Mugabe at 77

"Friends are getting fewer and fewer for Mugabe and his cronies," the Zimbabwe Standard writes.

"With the amount of desperation and frustration that the man is evidently having to cope with, we can only hope that the mish-mash of war vets and assorted hooligans, trading as the 21 February Movement, organises a good party to lift his spirits at their Victoria Falls bash."

Guinea rejects ECOWAS "poisoned chalice"

Guinea's Codem opposition alliance condemns what it calls the government's "irresponsible" media campaign to discredit the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

ECOWAS has offered to send in 1,700 peacekeeping troops to restore security to Guinea's troubled southern region, where fighting has displaced some 200,000 people, triggering a humanitarian crisis.

According to Africa No 1 radio, based in the Gabonese capital Libreville, Guinea's national television and rural radio stations have been "mounting a campaign decrying the failures of peacekeeping troops throughout the world".

The media offensive by the Guinean government in Conakry says ECOWAS troops have never rescued any regime facing difficulties.

The offer to dispatch the 1,700 ECOMOG (ECOWAS Ceasefire Monitoring Group) is "a poisoned chalice", the Guinea government says, and is even threatening to withdraw from ECOWAS.

We share a border with Liberia. The only thing we can do, therefore, is to negotiate with that country

Opposition leader Siradiou Diallo

But the opposition condemned the Guinean threat to pull out of ECOWAS.

"We think this is madness," Siradiou Diallo, president of the Union for Progress and Renewal, a member of the Codem alliance, said.

"It is irresponsible, and we do not agree with it," Mr Diallo told the radio.

"We share a border with Liberia. The only thing we can do, therefore, is to negotiate with that country, since we know that some of the assailants come from there."

"We should meet and talk with the Liberian authorities to get them to stop hosting people who are attacking our country."

Libya: Even a Godfather mellows

Namibian President Sam Nujoma has just returned from the Libyan capital Tripoli where his talks included Colonel Gaddafi's proposals to form a continental African union which would replace the Organisation of African Unity.

But is this the way forward for Windhoek, The Namibian wonders.

Colonel Gaddafi - leading Africa?

The Libyan leader "has been many things in his life," the paper comments, "but he has never been the future of Africa."

"Only when his Arab unity project failed miserably did he start looking south in an effort to wield some latter-day influence."

"And his views on those of us living below the Sahara are not exactly textbook Pan-Africanism."

The paper takes issue with some of the thoughts in Colonel Gaddafi's "Green Book" about black Africans, and goes on to refer to the Libyan leader's "slight public relations problem of him being the Godfather of International Terrorism".

"But the old boy seems to be mellowing," The Namibian writes.

"He hasn't been linked to an incident of global terrorism for years. He even attends international investment summits - albeit in a white suit with black shirt and designer shades."

"So perhaps history will be kinder to him than it would have been if he'd succumbed to the 1986 US attack."

But is he the architect of a future United States of Africa? Sadly no."

Save Ghana's economy - be my Valentine

Now, did you give your loved one chocolates on Valentine's Day as a token of your undying affection? If so, you could help rescue the Ghanaian economy.

The government should introduce a Chocolate Policy

Ghanaian Chronicle

The Ghanaian Chronicle in Accra takes issue with the number of foreign investment projects, wondering to whom they bring the most benefit.

It casts a jaundiced eye at a fire which burned down a dilapidated shopping mall, saying it "wouldn't be surprised" if the foreign owners "end up receiving millions of cedis in insurance claims, if not billions."

"I feel cheated as a Ghanaian citizen to witness rip-offs of this nature being perpetuated by nonentities who, under a so-called 'enabling environment' and unbridled economic liberalisation, pass themselves off as investors", one columnist writes.

"The government should introduce a Chocolate Policy", he says.

"This is the only product we can produce in abundance."

"If we can export chocolate to their respective countries in exchange for their goods and services, our balance of payment will diminish and jobs will be created as a result."

"If each citizen spent a dollar a year on Ghana's chocolate, the end result is foreign exchange earnings of 3 billion dollars. We may even end up generating surpluses."

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.